Drinkers back ban on booze

THERE is a pleasant clink of glasses and a quiet hum of voices in the lounge bar of the Half Moon.

It is late afternoon, and a few local regulars have popped into the Strensall pub for a pint.

Inevitably, the topic of conversation turns to news of a possible ban on drinking alcohol in the village street.

Landlady Heather Wright is all in favour - even though she thinks ultimately it won't stop the underage boozers whose drunken behaviour has been making villagers' lives a misery.

"It's a really good idea," she said. "I just hope it works. Something does need to be done. It is really bad around here at the moment.

"There is quite a gang of them (youths), usually on a Saturday night, running backwards and forwards up and down the village. There have been quite a few incidents in the last few months: throwing stones at buses, and just rowdiness and yobbery. It can be quite intimidating."

It might seem odd to find a pub landlady in favour of a ban on alcohol. But drinking in a pub and on the street are two entirely different things, Heather stresses.

The alcohol consumed by teenagers on the streets of Strensall does not come from any of the village's pubs - or even from local stores or off-licences.

Instead, it is bought mainly in supermarkets.

"Every shop, pub and off-licence in Strensall is pretty good (on not selling alcohol to under-age drinkers)", Heather said.

Wherever the booze comes from, there is no doubt it contributes significantly to the village's antisocial behaviour problems.

So will the ban on drinking in the street work?

"I think it will help," Heather said. "But I think a lot of them will just go and hide somewhere to drink - go and sit on the common or something, and then come back into the village afterwards. Kids will be kids. There's no easy solution."

Mike Adnett agrees. The ban is a good idea, and may help to curb the "mindless vandalism" that so often plagues the village, he says.

But whether it works will depend on how it is enforced.

"We tend to see the police at 2pm in the afternoon. And I hope we're not just wasting taxpayers money taking these people to court only for them to get a slap on the wrist."

Nevertheless, he thinks the ban will at least have an impact. "If they are caught, they should get done," he said.

Brian Ellwood, 69, stresses that it is only a minority of youngsters causing the problems.

"It's the ones that have no aim in life, no hobbies like football or cricket," he said.

And what they are getting up to isn't major crime, he points out - just unpleasant and annoying behaviour. He has seen the effects of that behaviour all too often - walls knocked down, windows smashed, cars vandalised.

He too supports the ban - but agrees with Heather Wright that there is no easy solution to ending such behaviour. It comes down really to young people with too little respect and too much money to spend, he says.

Most of them, he believes, will simply grow out of such behaviour as they get a little older.

Once they are old enough to start drinking in a pub, for example, they will meet with older people instead of just hanging around with other young people all the time.

"That's what they are missing," he said.

"Get them away from the gangs and they will be all right."

We've had problems with buses being stoned, drunks on a Friday night, kids with white bags carrying booze... sadly, it's normal for us'

A ban on drinking in the street will be a "step in the right direction", says Richard Horseman, who runs Strensall Post Office.

It is one that is, sadly, very necessary, he says.

"We've had problems with buses being stoned, drunks on a Friday night, kids with white bags carrying booze.

"Normal things - sadly, it's normal for us."

One of the biggest problems, he says, is that youngsters have nothing to do.

The ban won't fix that, but it will mean they will probably drink at home instead, with their parents; then it is the parents' problem, he adds.

Butcher Dave Taylor, who owns a shop in Barley Rise, says drinking on the streets is the worst that he has known it.

"I start work early in the morning and when I come in you can tell when people have been drinking because there are cans all up the back and cider bottles.

"I've been here for 24 years and it's the worst that I have seen."

It is easy to buy liquor in Strensall because it is sold in shops at each end and in the centre of the village, he said.

"They're picking and choosing where to get it from," he said.

"A ban on booze is definitely needed; it's not drastic at all."

Mohammed Khalid, manager of the Costcutter store is undecided - mainly because he worries a ban would drive drinkers to the streets of another village.

"They don't get the alcohol from us; we know most of the young people and their parents and if we don't know how old somebody is we'll ask their parents," he said.

"I think a ban would help but if they don't drink on the streets of Strensall they will move on somewhere else, so I don't know if it would be much good.

"They congregate outside of the shop quite regularly on an evening which is a good thing and a bad thing, because although it might intimidate customers, we can keep an eye on them because we have a camera system and they're only ever having a laugh between themselves. If they move on somewhere else with no camera system who knows what they'd be up to then?"

How the ban might work...

The ban on outdoor drinking in Strensall is likely to come into force at the end of March, when clocks go forward and the evenings become longer.

No ban has yet been formally approved, stressed City of York Council's licensing manager John Lacy.

First, there is a 28 day period - which started yesterday - during which people can register their objections to such a ban.

Only when that period has ended will city councillors decide to go for an order banning the consumption of alcohol in Strensall's streets and outdoor areas.

Mr Lacy said, however, that "overwhelming evidence" had been presented by everyone from the police and local businesses to the parish council and bus company First that such a ban would be appropriate.

"They have all been concerned for a number of months about the number of drink-related incidents that have clearly blighted the community," he said.

"The police have recorded 350 incidents of drink-related nuisance in the village in one year. That is quite significant for a village of that size."

The onset of spring was the obvious time to introduce the ban, Mr Lacy said, because the longer evenings encouraged more outdoor drinking.

The ban, if it goes ahead, will cover the two parishes of Strensall and Towthorpe - and hence will include the whole of Strensall village, plus the playing fields and part of Strensall common.

It will give police powers to ask anyone to stop drinking in outdoor areas, and to confiscate alcohol. Anyone failing to comply would be committing an offence, and could be fined up to £500.

Mr Lacy stressed that drinkers would only be committing an offence if they were asked to stop drinking by the police.

The ban would not apply to private gardens, or to licensed beer gardens, he said.

But it would give officers "clear powers" to tackle young people - whether over or under 18 - whose behaviour was felt to be causing a nuisance.

Once the ban is in place, signs declaring Strensall and alcohol exclusion zone' will go up at every entrance into the village, and also on "hot-spots" such as the Barley Rise shops and the playing fields.

No alcohol zone success

A SIMILAR no-drinking zone to the one proposed in Strensall was imposed in Copmanthorpe last year.

Derek Bowen, of Copmanthorpe Parish Council, has been very pleased with the results.

"It's certainly helped, there are fewer problems now," he said.

"It doesn't eliminate it totally, but it goes a long way towards helping."

The winter weather reduces the number of people drinking on the streets anyway, he says, but there were definitely fewer incidents over the summer.

Part of the battle is finding out which areas are troublesome, he says, and the police are usually very helpful with that.

Community Support Officers have been good too, he says, because there is no point having rules if there is nobody to enforce them.

The local Co-op store has been particularly helpful by checking ID for people buying alcohol.

"Every village will have its different problems and different ways of dealing with them and youngsters indulging in alcohol outside.

"They will know what those particular problems are.

"An alcohol exclusion zone might work for them, as it has here.

"Certainly no one has complained about it."

Police support ban on street drinking

POLICE in Strensall are fully behind a proposed ban on alcohol in the village's streets and outdoor areas.

Sergeant Donna Musgrove, who leads the neighbourhood policing team for Strensall, said it would send out a clear message to drunken youths.

"Alcohol has been a significant contributory factor to the problems experienced by the community," she said.

"This has been evidenced by the large amounts of alcohol we have seized, especially during the warmer months when incidents are more frequent.

"The zone will assist in providing further powers for officers to address the problem and will send out a clear message that the authorities are treating the issue seriously."